ProgBlog

The Guardian newspaper occasionally includes a reference to prog - I suspect a couple of the writers are closet fans - but I was surprised when an edition earlier this month had two references: an article about Kate Bush and another about how rock musicians shouldn't have dabbled with disco...

By ProgBlog, Jan 1 2019 05:22PM

2018. A year like no other, with global politics stooping to a new nadir as so-called world leaders lie, cheat and bully their way through life. I’ve always tended towards optimism, which is one of the reasons I have an affinity for progressive rock, but when humanity is fast-approaching the point where man-made climate change is going to have irreversible, accelerated effects on the biosphere and some of the largest economies in the world argue about the wording of a document at the end of the (extended) COP24 Climate Conference in Katowice relating to the implementation of the 2015 Paris agreement, I may have reached my personal tipping point. For the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, with tacit encouragement from Australia and Brazil, joining forces to prevent the conference fully embracing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings that any warming of above 1.5oC of pre-industrial levels would be disastrous for many species seems criminal to me. As forest fires rage across California and Australia and Japan once again break their local temperature records, it’s time surely for anyone with children or grandchildren to think globally and, at the earliest opportunity, use the ballot box to facilitate change.

The Guardian headline 15 December 2018

Change appears to be the kryptonite of anyone with a vested interest. Colonial expansion allowed Europeans to profit from indigenous mineral wealth with little or no trickle-down benefit for locals (usually the opposite); the dirty energy that fuelled the industrial revolution made a small number of people very rich; the sell-off of former Soviet state industries made a smaller number of people super-wealthy; now our fondness for technology has created an even smaller group of unimaginably rich who are responsible for the way we get our information. I’m not going to deny that there’s no philanthropic disbursement of funds but however well-founded donations are, there’s always a return for the sponsor through free advertising and access to political power, and even something as outwardly benign as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has come under scrutiny for purportedly cornering the market on global health issues. Thanks to some stunning work by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), it has been revealed that the accumulation of wealth by a limited proportion of the global population, including politicians, is driven by self-interest and that they utilise schemes which although falling within the letter of the law, are actually complex constructs to preserve that wealth and ergo, influence or power. The employment of offshore structures is the equivalent of smoke and mirrors, a device to distract and confuse and ultimately avoid transparency; the influence is exerted to avoid regulation, the same red tape that might have prevented the Bhopal disaster, the Sandoz chemical spill, the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the Flint, Michigan water crisis and many others. There’s a salutary lesson here: cutting regulations may save you money, but cutting costs may cost lives.

Climate change appears to be rather low on the UK government’s list of priorities, along with rising homelessness and providing appropriate care for the elderly, those with disabilities and the unwell. Currently paralysed in a mess of her own making, bounded by red lines and surrounded by a party disunited over Europe, the Prime Minister continues to rely on DUP MPs to hold the government together even as she decries almost half of the population who voted to remain in the EU as undemocratic for suggesting a second referendum; her pro-Brexit allies from Northern Ireland don’t actually represent the majority ‘remain’ sentiment to be found in the province but she continues to allow them to hold her to ransom. It’s easy for critics of Jeremy Corbyn to lambast him for not holding Theresa May fully to account for her Brexit bungling but there are some equally pressing issues which, if satisfactorily addressed, might persuade those who voted to leave that their voice is being heard and that there was nothing to gain from leaving the EU. If May had taken more of a consensus approach to work out the best solution for the country and not attempted the impossible, the reconciliation of the pro- and anti-Europe wings of the Conservative party, the UK might not be three months away from the worst possible scenario – no deal.

Extrapolating from what I’ve seen in Prog magazine and in tweets posted by the individuals I follow on Twitter, I imagine that the majority of UK prog musicians are in favour of remaining within the EU. The challenge of restriction to movement throughout Europe effectively putting a kibosh on touring the mainland continent for all but the best resourced bands by erecting barriers to seamless touring not seen since the early 1970s, cutting off a previously accessible market. The reciprocal arrangement will undoubtedly deter artists from some of our former EU partners from gigging in the UK. The following argument could be made by not only anyone who has enjoyed the benefits of cheap intracontinental travel but by NHS senior managers, hoteliers and other owners of hospitality, catering or drinks businesses, even farmers requiring a large seasonal workforce; any restriction or barrier to EU citizens working in the UK is going to have an adverse effect on our daily lives, whether that’s longer waiting times in hospitals, no one to staff care homes for our elderly relatives, food shortages and concomitant rising prices, or just finding it harder to enjoy a night out. Doesn’t that make us look grown-up?

The Brexit-fantasy nostalgia even puts my infatuation with 70’s prog in the shade. I resent the barriers being erected that will inconvenience me on my quest to witness the last few classic progressivo Italiano bands I’ve not yet seen, and flourishing my blue UK passport at the end of a slow-moving immigration queue at Genoa’s Cristoforo Colombo airport isn’t actually something I’m going to feel proud about.

2018 did turn out to be good for one thing; the number of concerts I managed to attend (22) was the most I’ve ever managed in a year; I had thought 2017 was busy with 14 (that’s including two days in Genoa for the Porto Antico Prog Fest and five nights in Rome for the Progressivamente festival.) At times it felt as though I was chasing gigs and was certainly flagging by the end of March. Having recommenced semi-retirement towards the end of 2017, it became easier to take extended weekend breaks so on my return from a midweek skiing trip to Chamonix in early January I discovered that Banco del Mutuo Soccorso had a gig in Brescia the following week which, thanks to its proximity to Milan, made travel arrangements relatively easy.

ProgBlog's list of gigs, 2018

The true gig marathon began on the 23rd March with my second venture to the Fabio Zuffanti-organised Z-Fest in Milan and ended with my first attendance at a Tangerine Dream performance at the Union Chapel, Islington, on 23rd April. Between those dates I got to see Yes at the Palladium, the first of Steven Wilson’s three nights’ residency at the Royal Albert Hall, had a week skiing in Austria after which I dropped off my gear and immediately headed out to the ESP 22 Layers of Sunlight launch party at the Half Moon, Putney, and flew off to Brescia again, this time for another classic Italian prog band, Le Orme, who were augmented by David Cross on violin. The complexities of getting back the hotel from some of these Italian venues can be something of a logistical nightmare after public transport has shut down for the night. Walking the streets of Genoa after a show poses no threat when the club or theatre is in the heart of the city but the 11km between L’ Angelo Azzurro and the NH Genova Centro, though only a 90 minute walk at most, might not be the best idea at 2am. I am deeply indebted to Marina Montobbio for arranging my lift back from an excellent gig. BMS at Brescia would have been less problematic if I hadn’t followed my wife’s instructions not to use public transport to get back to our hotel. Circolo Colony, the venue for the show, was hidden away on an industrial estate about 20 minutes walk from the light rail terminus to the east of the city. Though the last train was scheduled for 1am, the walk to the station would have involved a section behind the Armco protection from a dual carriageway, so I was told to get a taxi. I had pre-programmed a mobile phone app to get my return cab but despatch phoned me to tell me nothing was available at the time I requested, 00:45am, and the last taxi was at midnight. Apart from missing a chunk of the BMS set, I had to hang around the car park for almost half an hour and had to phone the company to ask where the driver was. When he appeared, it turned out that he was familiar with progressive rock so the journey back to the hotel wasn’t unpleasant. On my return to the city three months later I’d worked out not to bother trying to pre-book a return taxi journey. I made a note of where the taxi dropped me off on the way to the Brixia Forum, returned to that spot at the conclusion of the performance, and called a taxi; mine was the third to arrive. As a result of making the trip for the BMS gig, I was able to explore more of Italy. I really like Brescia with its three record stores (special mention has to go to Kandinski, Via Tartaglia 49c, 25100 Brescia) but it also hosts a UNESCO World Heritage site and the railway provides easy access to other cities including Cremona, and to Lake Garda.

While the variety of live events I attended spanned the inaugural local electronica festival (part three of Palace Electrics was held at Antenna Studios, Crystal Palace and included an interpretation of Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music) to Camel at the Royal Albert Hall and the fabulous Lucca Summer Festival for an outdoor experience of King Crimson, I was also being exposed to a lot more music that I’d describe as being outside my comfort zone. Requests for me to review new music, which came from all parts of the prog spectrum, led to the creation of a new section on the ProgBlog website, DISCovery, which had the aim of exposing new artists to a wider audience. So far it has featured a diverse range of styles including classic Floyd-like soundscape prog, pop-prog, prog with a metal bias, and RIO-inflicted free jazz.

I hope that my contribution to the prog world, however small, inspires someone to go out and explore, whether that’s just the sonic adventure of trying something new or a geographical quest to unearth the inspiration behind the music, where an understanding of physical and cultural artefacts help to piece the world together. 2019 certainly needs everyone to display a little more understanding.

By ProgBlog, Jul 9 2018 04:58PM

Britain’s National Health Service celebrated its 70th anniversary last week, having come into effect on July 5th 1948. Despite a relatively limited personal use of the Service with only one hospital stay for overnight observation following a head injury sustained during a mountaineering accident in the Lake District in 1976, and continued checks in the ophthalmology department to monitor for trauma-induced glaucoma after being hit by a squash ball in the eye in 2007, it’s good to know that a comprehensive health service, free at the point of delivery for everyone, exists in the UK. Sadly, free universal and comprehensive healthcare in the UK has been under attack for much of the last 40 years, even when Blair’s New Labour was increasing health spending by an average 5.4% per year, selling the public the idea of new hospitals (and other major projects) but actually committing the coffers in the public purse to fatally flawed PPI ventures from which hospitals in particular continue to suffer.

It’s widely remarked that the NHS has a special place in the hearts of British citizens although it’s always been highly politicised. Conceived by health minister Aneurin Bevan and introduced by Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government, there was considerable opposition to the scheme amongst those with vested interests. Many doctors did not want to become employees of the government; hospital consultants wanted to continue to charge private patients for treatment and 64% of GPs opposed the NHS, preferring to treat patients privately, leading to the BMA to organise a campaign to ‘boot out Bevan’. Even nurses were against the plan, as it threatened their income from private family visits. Bevan finally won round doctors with the promise of new hospitals and badly needed equipment but significantly also agreed to allow doctors to continue to treat private patients in addition to their NHS work.

NHS 60th anniversary edition of Bevan's In Place of Fear

The Principles of the NHS:

Universal Access: The NHS was for all

Comprehensive: The NHS would treat all medical conditions. Doctors, dentists, opticians and hospital treatments would all form part of the service

Free at the point of need: Patients would not pay for treatment

The new NHS was to be paid for out of National Insurance contributions and would provide free medical services for all

Ambulance services were set up to cope with emergencies

I’ve been involved the service since 1981, one of the behind-the-scenes staff in a laboratory. Initially employed by the National Blood Transfusion Service immediately after graduation, within five years I’d expressed a few hundred litres of plasma from whole blood, pooled platelets, washed blood, made clotting factors VIII and IX, provided reagents derived from blood donations to hospitals in the South East, screened ante natal blood for antibodies to prevent haemolytic disease of the newborn and selected and crossmatched units of blood for patients requiring transfusion. I was working there in 1983 the virus responsible for AIDS was independently discovered by Gallo in the US and Barré-Sinoussi/Montagnier in France, naming the novel retrovirus HTLV-III and LAV respectively, before it became known as HIV in 1986 and, to reflect the importance of that discovery, changed the name of the band I was in at that time to HTLV-III.

In 1984 I moved to the section that covered bone marrow transplantation but after a successful two years in that post, I was told I was to be moved to a different department. Fortunately my predecessor, who had left to join the kidney transplant team at Charing Cross Hospital, was moving on again to Scotland; I applied for and was appointed to fill that vacancy, delivering a leaving party speech that criticised the management of the Transfusion Centre for virtually forcing me out. It’s satisfying but disappointing that things got much worse there after I left, all due to poor strategic decisions, in search of ‘efficiencies’.

The lab at Charing Cross was small and friendly and though much of the work was for renal transplants, we were actually part of Rheumatology. It’s good to have a different perspective and meeting professionals from other disciplines helped me see healthcare from a holistic point of view. With rumours of a pathology reorganisation circulating in 1988, a post at Guy’s Hospital offering research potential and an annual international conference proved too good to resist.

The Guy’s lab had something of a mixed reputation when I joined but within a couple of years we started to make some astute personnel changes and began to build up one of the most successful renal transplant teams in the UK, no longer treated as just a laboratory but sharing expertise with the medical and nursing teams.

The Conservatives introduced the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 which created an ‘internal market’ for the supply of healthcare so that the state would no longer be the main provider, but act more as an enabler, forcing local authorities to assess people for social care and support to determine a patient’s requirements and to purchase the care from providers – the new NHS Trusts. Guy’s and Lewisham joined forces and became the Tories’ flagship Trust but hospital reorganisation in London, to make the service yet more efficient, meant that the Guy’s – Lewisham partnership was dissolved and Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, complete with a level of autonomy from the Department of Health, was created in 1993. A few years before, Guy’s had been singled out for major improvement, what was to have been the £140m Philip Harris House, a state-of-the-art seven storey wing designed to be conducive to effective healthcare. However, the inexplicable transfer of acute services to St Thomas’ Hospital, considered by many to have been a political move disguised by that reorganisation (Tommies was in a parlous state before the formation of the Foundation Trust) led to Philip Harris, a carpet magnate and Conservative Party donor withholding his £6 million from the project; the building sat empty for some time before being reassigned for outpatient services and some research facilities under the name of Thomas Guy House.

The creation of NHS Trusts immediately increased the running costs of a hospital because of the number of managers required to oversee the internal market and to control budgets. Cutting waste and making efficiencies has long been the mantra of officials but they failed to see the hypocrisy of paying management consultancies huge sums of money to produce reports to validate decisions made by hospital boards to circumvent discussion. This continued after Blair replaced John Major as PM in an attempt to show the public that New Labour was both a prudent manager of the public purse and that it was business-friendly. The machinations of GSTT managers or ministers in the Department of Health didn’t impact on me directly until 2008 when, encouraged by a government which delighted in ‘a third way’ but based on poor data collected pre-2006 for the Carter Report, it was proposed that pathology at Guy’s and St Thomas’ (also to include Bedford Hospital) should be part-privatised in a joint venture between the hospitals and outsourcing darlings Serco. Despite opposition from staff throughout the hospital and sympathy from the chair of the board of governors, the Joint Venture commenced operating under the title of GSTS Pathology on January 1st 2009 so, to ensure I couldn’t be singled out for my outspoken opposition to this development, I became a union representative and campaigned vigorously to stop all forms of NHS privatisation and the unfair treatment of staff.

Protesting against the privatisation of Pharmacy by Sainsbury's

GSTT was at the forefront of removing staff from its books through a series of privatisations; Pathology, the Post Room, Pharmacy, seemingly simultaneously oblivious to the wishes of staff and mounting evidence to show that in fact, privatisation was a contributory factor in declining standards of delivery of care. When the coalition government was formed in 2010 they quickly revealed a major shake-up in the provision of healthcare, Andrew Lansley’s Health and Social Care Bill (enacted in 2012), despite a Conservative manifesto pledge that there would be no NHS reorganisation. Now largely scrapped though still adversely affecting the NHS, other changes to public sector pensions and terms and conditions of work introduced by the coalition shortly after they came to power were part of a strategy to entice private sector providers to take over services; unfortunately the strategy worked, but not without seriously affecting provision of comprehensive, universal healthcare (according to a report by the NHS Support Federation, £7.1bn worth of NHS clinical contracts were awarded through an NHS tendering process in the year up to April 2017.) The changes were sold to the public as being necessary in an age of austerity but the government was defending its friends and the failed ideology that caused the collapse of the global financial system in 2008; George Osborne’s imposition of austerity measures to eradicate the budget deficit was really another strategy to break up any power remaining in the hands of the state and politicians and economists alike have criticised the approach, which is responsible for a continuing weak, low-growth economy.

On the occasion of the NHS’s 63rd birthday, I predicted that unless there was a change in administration, it would barely make it to 68. Fortunately I was wrong, though how it managed to survive the last three winter crises and a lengthy doctor’s strike is a miracle. It appears that the cuts to NHS funding have now been stopped but there’s still insufficient movement on the investment required for integrating health and social services. However much money we put into health is never going to be enough but it’s pleasing to see that the British public would accept a tax rise for the NHS. Bevan’s guiding principles for the service illustrate a willingness to eradicate inequality and what he founded may stand as the highest achievement for social democracy. To ensure his legacy continues to have a future we need to recognise the value of everyone who plays a role in healthcare provision, from the cleaners and the porters and post room staff and catering staff upwards. Jeremy Corbyn’s recent call to end the NHS internal market is also a key move, as competition between providers is likely to lead to unrealistic tenders, an uneven provision of care or a diminution of quality; the Lansley Act had the detrimental effect of splitting effective care pathways and raising costs through inefficiency.

I left Viapath (the re-branded GSTS Pathology) in 2015 to restart as an NHS employee in a different NHS Trust. Despite a national celebration of the service on its 70th birthday, I didn’t join in because the cheerleaders for the day, the higher managers who sanction privatisation of services and impose punitive sickness policies were handing out free muffins to all staff... The passion that many millions share for the NHS, despite its shortcomings, is the reason it’s still going and anyone who cares to can check that it ranks very highly on efficiency and social equity; the US with its private insurance-based system favoured by some of the more right-wing members of the Conservative party, spends far more on health per person with poorer and dreadfully inequitable outcomes.

So what’s the NHS got to do with progressive rock? Apart from the excellent band National Health (see ProgBlog’s February 2014 post National Health), it’s about the prevailing social conditions in the late 60s and the notion of equity of access; the founding of the NHS is one of the defining features of advanced social democracy, along with the provision of decent social housing, and opened the door for further democratising movements like access to higher education for students from all backgrounds. The prime movers in progressive rock appealed to the burgeoning student groups but also envisioned a better world and even attempted to challenge accepted norms through bridging the two worlds of high- and popular culture; I don’t believe that progressive rock would have developed in Britain in the same way if we’d not already made moves to make society more equal.

So the next challenge is to see how the NHS fares post-Brexit, but I agree with the words attributed to Bevan: the NHS will last as long as there’s folk with faith left to fight for it.

By ProgBlog, Jun 11 2017 05:59PM

The UK has been gripped by the general election over the last week, somewhat surprisingly when it appeared that the electorate was completely battered by a spate of recent polls: The Scottish Independence referendum; the 2015 general election; the EU referendum; then the somewhat unnecessary call for a stronger mandate to bolster Theresa May’s negotiating hand for our exit from the EU. Yet, on Friday as I prepared to go for work, there was an indication that the world of politics may never be the same again as the results indicated a hung parliament and a good number of seats gained by the Labour Party, including mine in Croydon Central. Seven weeks ago there was a tacit understanding, promoted by almost all mainstream media, that Labour faced annihilation and that Jeremy Corbyn would be personally responsible for the wipe-out at the ballot box. However, on that morning commentators and a large proportion of the Parliamentary Labour Party had to admit just how wrong they’d been; though Labour didn’t get more seats than the Tories it was widely recognised that in overseeing a net gain of 32 seats, including positive results in Conservative heartlands such as Canterbury and Kensington, Corbyn had emerged as the biggest winner of the previous night.

Croydon Central. Photo: Chris Gorman www.standard.co.uk

At the start of the campaign, the contradictory behaviour of May, parroting that she was ‘strong and stable’ while embarking on a series of damaging U-turns seemed to be sufficient to dispel any vestiges of interest in politics in all but the politicians themselves, numbed as we were by the inane slogans of a political class which frequently put itself before the constituents. The gap in the polls between the two main parties was running at over 20 points, leading to the conclusion that May was calling the election, already with a working majority, for simple political gain. Despite the backing of media moguls and big business, however much money was thrown at the Tory campaign it was insufficient to hide May’s innate deficiencies. Badly advised and playing to vested interests, and projecting many of the damning qualities she accused the Labour leadership of possessing, her presidential-style campaign came unstuck with her refusal to debate head-to-head, the catalogue of changes in policy, a lack of empathy towards struggling working people, plus her dismal record as Home Secretary as she sought to pin the blame for the murderous attacks in Manchester and London on ‘terrorist sympathisers’ leading the opposition.

Meanwhile, Corbyn did what he does best; take his campaigning style out around the UK. Helped by the most socialist manifesto for a generation, one which had been agreed by the PLP, he sent out a message of hope and a rejection of seven years of failed neo-liberal economics. If anything, the manifesto was a little too cautious for me but I understood that the Labour document would undergo more forensic scrutiny than anything produced by the incumbents; fortunately for Labour, the Tories relied on their (entirely unwarranted) reputation for sensible fiscal management and didn’t bother to properly cost their programme, thus revealing a deep disdain for the voting public. The trend for the poll gap to close in some surveys, attributed to Corbyn’s message of hope to the young, was also dismissed as being of little concern because of the perceived notion that young people wouldn’t bother to turn out to vote.

The other misplaced presumption was that UKIP votes, even those from former Labour supporters would end up with Conservative candidates. This worried many prospective Labour MPs in the north, in Wales and the Midlands where they believed that Corbyn was responsible for alienating voters. What I already knew and what people saw following the announcement of the election, was that when seen outside of the bear-pit of the House of Commons with its turn-off adversarial politics, a game Corbyn was unhappy playing, he went down very well with thousands of people all around the country and, when reported on the news outside the prism of normal parliamentary coverage, millions more could hear his message of hope and positivity and witness his inclusivity. It became obvious, rather quickly, that he wasn’t a monster with fringe ideas dedicated to destroying the UK but quite the opposite; he wanted a fairer system where those who could afford to, paid a bit more tax and through investment, wealth was better distributed and services were resumed for the benefit of all.

I became politically active when Andrew Lansley proposed his Health and Social Care Bill after the formation of the coalition government in 2010. This was something that didn’t even feature in the Conservative manifesto at the time but, because of its swift introduction, it had evidently been pre-planned and I could see that it spelt out the certain break-up of the NHS. Over the following years I marched, sat down in the middle of Westminster Bridge for an hour or two and made connections with like-minded individuals. The highlight of this time was giving a short address to a crowded Central Hall, Westminster, about the threat of privatisation in the NHS. I’d just organised a ‘Hands Around St Thomas’ Hospital’ event, held opposite Parliament during some of the most dreadful spring weather imaginable and Jeremy Corbyn was one of the only MPs to attend; then, when I’d given my speech, John McDonnell approached me to say how much he enjoyed what I’d said.

The drift towards an acceptance that austerity was the only possible answer to the global crash of 2008 was simply the will of large corporations who wanted to carry on as normal. Politicians, possibly fearing the wrath of vested interests, went along with this because the alternative narrative required a shift to economics proposed by the left and a refutation of centrist social democracy so ironically, it was Labour who saved neo-liberalism. The coalition inherited an economy that had begun to shows signs of recovery but, following the dogma that decried the requirement for any form of state control, they imposed a wage cap on the public sector and began a series of cuts to services which hit the poor, the ill and the young while cementing the lifestyle of the top earners. The downward pressure on wages of already low-earners in an economy dominated by the service industries provided one of the sources of anti-immigrant sentiment; another was a chronic shortage of appropriate housing stock. No one in a position of power had the will to challenge the causes of this tension because this too would have upset the orthodoxy. Instead, we witnessed the return of slum landlords and an increase in top-end properties bought by foreign investors who never set foot in their purchases; the divide between haves and have nots got ever wider and resentment simmered in former industrial heartlands, stoked by the multimillionaire proprietors of The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express and The DailyTelegraph and the people ignored by Westminster.

This election result changed all that. Originally deeply despairing of the Labour leadership, fuelled by the difference in opinion of the members and the PLP, The Guardian came round to supporting Labour following the publication of their manifesto. The contrast between Labour and Conservative became quite stark: positivity vs. fear and negativity; concern for social justice vs. conceited indifference and, crucially; discipline vs. chaos. Even after the exit poll at 10pm on Thursday there were still some Labour MPs who doubted. Of the imagined carnage, they only lost five seats but gained 37; the Conservatives lost 33 seats and gained 20, losing the parliamentary majority they held before the election. May’s Brexit-election gamble backfired spectacularly. Winner? Hardly!

Jeremy Corbyn may be an unorthodox leader but his sincerity and willingness to listen in a world where shouting loudest (including electronically) and acting strong were formerly seen as important traits, has enabled him to rewrite the rules. Brexit may have been a tussle between the Conservatives and an irrelevant UKIP but 40% of the voting public had much more to worry about and Labour has the best answers to their problems. I’m looking forward to the Conservative-DUP deal coming unstuck – bring on the next general election!

By ProgBlog, Jan 8 2017 06:52PM

The Christmas and New Year bank holidays fell on days which allowed extended weekends and, in order to address some of the inevitable excess that occurred despite the reduced volumes of food and drink that were brought into the house, both weekends featured a cultural excursion into central London.

One of these was a trip to the new Design Museum, housed in the former Commonwealth Institute just off High Street Kensington, an edifice described by English Heritage as the second most important modern building in London after the Royal Festival Hall, which underwent an impressive refit to house the new exhibition spaces. I’d visited the building before, during the period of its former function, to receive a Wedgewood plate from the National Blood (Transfusion) Service for donating 100 units of blood, plasma and platelets and even in 1985, before I displayed any interest in architecture, I thought it was a remarkable building. The free, permanent display at the museum deserves more space and only scratches the surface of ‘design’. However, it still managed to mention album artwork and house a display of turntables. Perhaps they’re thinking of a temporary special exhibition of album artwork...

Interior of The Design Museum

The other trip was to the Abstract Expressionism show at the Royal Academy of Arts (a far less attractive building, despite the Palladian influence on its design). The phrase ‘Abstract Expressionism’ was coined by critic Robert Coates in 1946 to describe a new phenomenon in American art associated with a generation of artists all working in the US but with diverse backgrounds: New York; the heartlands of the US; the West; European émigrés. I was interested in attending because I quite like the work of Jackson Pollock, one of the featured artists, having seen his work in the Guggenheim in Venice. It could be argued that without Peggy Guggenheim’s patronage there wouldn’t have been a Abstract Expressionist movement. Another reason I like Pollock is because I associate his artwork with progressive rock; though the art and prog movements took place in different decades, the room I most associate with listening to early progressive rock had a piece of my father’s artwork on the wall, a drip painting in white, yellow and red after Pollock and I seem to recall him with a board (in lieu of canvas) in the back garden of our first house wheeling his bicycle over a similar composition and this process of construction, as well as the complexity of finished piece, held a deep fascination.

The Royal Academy of Arts - Abstract Expressionism

The extended break still ended too early, even with a reduced working week but it was nevertheless good to consign 2016 to the dustbin of history. Domestic and global politics took a downturn just when we were thinking it couldn’t get worse, amplifying divisions and, for the first time in a long, long time, bigotry and hate speech seemed to have become legitimised. Apart from the power-play where more than one multi-millionaire labelled all journalists as elitist, 2016 did have what appeared to be more than the average number of deaths of famous musicians and this had a quite extraordinary impact on the feelings of those who had grown up with this music. I don’t particularly like David Bowie’s music but I understand that millions and millions of people all around the world did have some form of connection with Bowie, and Prince, Leonard Cohen and George Michael. I was personally more affected by the deaths of Keith Emerson and Greg Lake, two of the first rock musicians I’d ever heard but apart from reporting on their contribution to progressive rock in celebration of their careers, I remained relatively unmoved. I don’t mean any of this in a disrespectful way and if anyone, from any background, is able to positively influence someone in some way; give them some kind of meaning or put into words what they’ve not been able to express themselves, that’s not to be scoffed at. I’m approaching this from a rationalist standpoint; both Bowie and Lake had cancer and, at 69 years of age, had lived a full life which had reached a natural limit within statistical ranges. I reject the government argument that pensionable age should be raised because we’re all dying older because plainly that is not true. It might be the case that age at death has increased for some but, especially in areas of greater deprivation and reduced life-chances, longevity lags behind. A 2015 study from the King’s Fund Inequalities and life expectancy Changes over time and implications for policy by David Buck and David Maguire may have shown the relationship between income deprivation and life expectancy got weaker over the period between 1999 and 2010 but other factors, including employment, housing deprivation and some lifestyle factors go some way to explain differences in life expectancy between areas during the latter part of the study period, and that low employment, housing deprivation and smoking are among the factors that distinguish areas with persistently low life expectancy over time. The argument to raise the age of the state pension and to make changes to public sector pensions in 2011 which caused widespread public anger was part of a plan to make public sector jobs open to private business. It might be more economically sound to allow workers to retire to create decent, full-time jobs for school leavers and graduates who had been hard-wired to believe in home ownership but we’re going to find many of the workers in caring professions, who generally are not well paid, being ground down until they are incapable of working or dying before they can take their pensions.

NHS strike action

I stood on picket lines and argued that even in the long-term, the NHS pension pot easily paid for itself as long as staff continued to be recruited into the scheme. I pointed out that the proposed legislation was because the cost of similar pension benefits was prohibitive to private healthcare providers, with plenty of friends in government, wanting to move into the UK; that pension reform and privatisation were inextricably linked and austerity was being used as a rationale to deliver cost-cutting and the decimation of the Health Service. Over the next year I witnessed the sale of NHS departments to private firms; soft targets going to DHL, Serco and Sainsbury, removing staff from hospital payroll and immediately cutting upfront costs. The damage to the NHS, alarmingly labelled a ‘humanitarian crisis’ by the Red Cross last week, includes no money for training, de-skilling, understaffing, endemic low-morale and stress-related sickness absence; throw in stories of European workers being told to prepare to leave the UK and it’s evident that there’s a catastrophe waiting to happen. Perhaps someone is waiting for the private sector to gallop in on a white charger...

I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a cultural thing particularly pertinent to current times, where not only access to music and film has been made easier, our ability to comment on and interact with others who feel the same, or the polar opposite, is part of the everyday landscape. I used to abuse the letters page of Barrow’s North Western Evening Mail with made-up opinions and made-up names in an attempt to lampoon parochial concerns (read: dog mess) but this ruse took a good deal of time and effort; I had to write the letter by hand, post the letter using Royal Mail and wait to see if the terribly elite editorial board would publish. If only Twitter and Facebook messages took two days, an editorial review and the equivalent of postage before they could be displayed. I’m not only guilty of mistreating the entire Evening Mail readership with letters and my poetry, I’m also in the business of spouting opinion on social media. That my ProgBlog somehow got mixed up with a Canadian political site of the same name may be of concern, but it earned a spot as the 24th most liberal blog detected by the Feedspot blog.

Meanwhile, at the back end of 2016, I was given a copy of the Greg Lake Live DVD for Christmas, a concert recorded in Stevenage in November 2005, less than a week before I went to see his performance in Croydon and dutifully watched it at the earliest opportunity. I recall enjoying the concert apart from a blues number which I refused to applaud because it was dire. This was Love You Too Much and I believe is evidence that Lake’s genuine creative period was over. I’m not fond of the later ELP material that’s included, either, beginning with the simplistic Paper Blood but also Farewell to Arms and Footprints in the Snow but the concert is well filmed and the band, including a young Florian Opahle on lead guitar, is really tight. Though it’s an accurate record of that tour, the bonus DVD material includes rehearsal time at Shepperton and some short interviews. One of these is with the promoter who predicts a great future for the ensemble and following the UK dates the band did play in Europe but his planned 2006 tour was cancelled.

Greg Lake Live DVD

Whereas Bowie and Prince maintained a sense of mystique and were able to reinvent themselves to remain relevant, I don’t believe that same can be said for the members of ELP, or even Yes who continue to tour, though they were giants that did at one stage rule the world of music. The relevance of the original progressive rock bands lies in their legacy, their experimentation and challenging norms. There are probably two generations who have been inspired by music that refuses to be packaged as industry standard and this innovation is what Lake and Emerson, and Chris Squire in 2015 should be remembered for.

By ProgBlog, Dec 4 2016 11:47PM

Ten years ago I was sitting in an MBA tutor group, discussing the pharmaceutical industry and I casually announced my belief that the NHS should prescribe any drug which had a proven beneficial effect whatever the cost and that the production of medicines needed to be brought under state control; 30 years before that during a General Studies class, I made an observation on equality which provoked the teacher to ask if I was a Marxist. My world view is based on the advantages of co-operation rather than the destructive forces of competition and I favour hope over selfishness and greed. These are sympathetic aspects that I coincidentally detect in symphonic progressive rock but I don’t necessarily think they make me a follower of Marxist doctrine.

In the last 6 months my philosophy has been battered by some devastating political developments, most notably the decision by a small majority of the British voting public to leave the European Union and, on the other side of the Atlantic, the election of Donald Trump as US President (the EU Referendum was discussed in the post http://progblog.co.uk/the-blogs/4583484660/Referendum/10768128). As I write, counting of votes in the re-run Austrian Presidential election has just begun and there are a couple of hours to go before polls close in Italy, where voters have to decide between the political establishment and rising populist forces in a referendum called by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi; the political landscape of Europe may yet take another turn for the worse.

I don’t intend to criticise anyone for voting the opposite way to me but I’m deeply unhappy about our descent into a post-truth world, where both obvious lies and unsubstantiated opinion are presented as ‘facts’ which gain the gloss of validity when they are transmitted over and over again by traditional media, whether or not owned by vested interests, and the more insidious new media which is controlled by only a handful of giant corporations. Sometimes it seems the louder you shout, whatever rubbish you’re spouting but especially if you’re tapping into a source of insecurity, the more adherents you get. There is an obvious disconnect between elected members and the public they ostensibly represent, where in the UK becoming an MP relies more on impressing the party establishment than it does with understanding the concerns of constituents within the community. This is disturbing because communities which existed at the peak of UK manufacturing in the 70s were decimated by the policies of the Thatcher-run Conservative government in the early 80s and whatever new industry has appeared, such as the assembly of Japanese cars in the north-east, it has not compensated for the loss of the original manufacturing base. The reduction in output of physical product was originally partially met by the expanding service sector, best illustrated by organisations based away from high-cost areas in low-rent call centres, but the cost-savings of this model weren’t enough for many high street names who outsourced the work to the Indian sub-continent, creating a customer services debacle; most of these companies have now brought back their call centres to the UK. Even worse, our ability to provide apprenticeships for practical skills was allowed to wither, demonstrated by the defects present in the recently built submarines carrying our nuclear deterrent....

The world has moved on following the 2008 global financial crash but the same vested interests continue to pull the strings. Our current government boasts of record employment figures while failing to accept the consequences of the ‘gig economy’: unskilled work; low pay; underemployment; lack of job security; a failure to invest for retirement. These effects have been exacerbated by a commitment to austerity but resistance has been poor because of the reduced power of the unions and the voting public has swallowed the misdirection of the government and the press. The lexicon has changed where ‘welfare’, the state safety net for those unable to work, has become ‘benefits’ and instead of seeking out the millions owed by corporate tax avoidance, we want to punish the far smaller number of ‘benefit cheats’. Our appetite for buzz phrases like ‘workers and shirkers’ or ‘skivers and strivers’ plays into the hands of anyone who wants to divide the country. Politicians and the media know that in times of crisis it’s handy to have someone to blame, whether it’s immigrants or the disabled, just as long as it’s not them or any of their coterie running banks and big business; we’ve become lazy, falling for a catchphrase and victimising groups who most deserve our support.

There are a number of terms in music with positive connotations. Harmony describes different voices getting along together; the voices in counterpoint are harmonically interdependent but independent in rhythm and contour; even dissonance can be resolved. As a musical form, progressive rock explores and utilises these techniques in an effort to bridge the so-called high culture of classical music with the popular culture of rock, rejoicing in and incorporating other diverse influences. Prog rock emerged on the back of hope for a better future and was realised through innovative technical developments, indicating a close relationship between ideals and novel thinking. Many of the ideas expounded in the science fiction books I read as a youth are now reality but the concomitant idealism has been ground into the dust. So when did this positive vision dissipate and why? Almost all commentators agree that Yes were an affirmative musical force and when they began really hitting the big time in America during the Close to the Edge tour, Jon Anderson would introduce And You And I as a ‘protest song’ and encourage the audience to think about the importance of the message. Did any of that generation go on and vote Trump or were they the ones who have taught their children and grandchildren to value the environment and peaceful coexistence? Analysis of the demographic of the electorate in the UK plebiscite and the US Presidential election may be complex but I think whichever way Britons and Americans cast their ballot, it was influenced by voices which spoke to self-interest rather than an appeal for what was best for everyone.

You can call me naive or call me a Marxist but I still believe that music can influence people and prog in particular is an affirmative force. I call for all those who attended Yes gigs in the 1970s to spread the message of protest.

Post Script

I’ve just read that the far-right Norbert Hofer has conceded defeat in the Austrian Presidential election. There’s still hope for humanity!